Deepika Padukone admits she ‘never imagined’ the kind of reactions Gehraiyaan has been getting: ‘A lot of things being picked up’

Actor Deepika Padukone has said that the reactions that her film Gehraiyaan has attracted from audiences was completely ‘unexpected’. Directed Shakun Batra and co-starring Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday and Dhairya Karwa, the film debuted on Amazon Prime Video on February 11, to polarising response from audiences and critics.
In a new interview, Deepika said that she was surprised to see what certain viewers had picked out as talking points about the film. Talking about the reactions that have highlighted the film’s treatment of mental illness, she told Bollywood Hungama, “I don’t think we ever imagined that it would be received like that.”

She continued, “A lot of the things that are being picked up the audience after watching the film, they were not meant to be so much of a talking point. But what is interesting is that they’ve become that organically. People are picking up on these things. Now, are things that we were conscientious of when we were making the movie? Of course. Having had a lived experience with mental illness, was I conscious of how it was being portrayed? Yes. But it’s not like the film is about that. It’s one of the threads… In fact, it’s not even a thread, it’s a backstory, or something that this character is dealing with. But there’s so much else going on…”
Although Deepika made it out to be like Gehraiyaan has been universally acclaimed, that isn’t the case. Producer Karan Johar and Shakun Batra have addressed the polarising reactions that the movie has attracted, and recently participated in a roundtable discussion with critics to discuss what didn’t work in the film. “We were talking, Karan and I, before the movie came out, and we knew that there were going to be opinions. We knew there would be polarising opinion, but I never knew the conversation would get here, and be this big,” Shakun said.
Also starring Naseeruddin Shah and Rajat Kapoor, Gehraiyaan has been praised for the performances of its cast, but has drawn criticism for its third act tonal shift. Criticism has also been directed at marketing that misrepresented the movie.